Memories of Seavington - 1981
Taken from the Seavington News November 1981
What was Seavington like, seventy or eighty or even ninety years aqo?
Some of us could tell you a thing or two, partly from what we remember, partly from what we were told by our parents and grand¬parents.
For a start, there was a school, with a headmaster, Mr. Flaxman, (later a series of headmistresses), and two assistant teachers; all age-group school, 4 to 12, with about 100 children. Girls wore white pinafores, and senior boys wore knickerbockers, with Norfolk jackets and laced-up hobnail boots. Twice every schoolday the big school bell in the turret could be heard ringing out over the villages. Children from Meade and Townsend must have bolted their dinners for fear of being late back. A family from Dinnington used to arrive in charge of their eldest sister, who was provided with a cupful of jam, a knife, and a halfpenny, and at mid-day she would go along the causeway or “cassv ” (high path along School Lane) to the village shop, now the “Wishing Well”, and buy a halfpenny loaf. So that was one family catered for.
During World War I, the children were released on one fine afternoon a week during September to pick blackberries, which were said to be made into jam for the troops. The price paid was three old pence per pound, a welcome addition to one’s pocket-money. Senior girls walked to and from Shepton Beauchamp once a week, for a whole day’s cookery lesson. In the playground at school, the children played singing games in great variety. On their way to school, along what we now know as the 303, the boys and girls skipped, or trundled hoops (perhaps made by the local blacksmith), or whipped tops, or played tip-cat (no cat was involved!)
They might have had to stop for an occasional horse. A workman riding a carthorse from the farm to the field always sat sideways, with a sack-bag in place of a saddle. If it rained, he draped a sack¬bag over his shoulders; this was before the days of rainproof clothing.
The centre of the higher village was the pond, now alas the car-park. Horses and cows drank from it, ducks swam on it, children fell in it, walked through it, made slides on it. Great excitement was shown when a steam-engine stopped at the pond to fill its water-boiler through a big hose.
Poor old Jobie Holland was found drowned in the pond, some say with a box of matches in one hand and his pipe in the other. He may have been over-indulging at the Volunteer; certainly his body was taken there into what is now the dining-room but was then a barn. Another body was also taken there, a cut-throat suicide found between Seavington and IIminster, and brought back on a hurdle across a wheelbarrow.
The red-letter day of the year was Seavington Club, held towards the end of May. Members paid a small weekly subscription throughout the year, to ensure a good day out. Garden gates were decorated with booths made of lilac blossom. There was a procession, headed by a local band, and Seavington had its own special brass flag-pole head, and banners. Stalls were erected, mostly for the sale of sweets and gingerbread.
Fairground people came, bringing roundabouts and swings. Sometimes the fair was held behind “Swan Thatch”, sometimes in Hunts Field. Sixpence in the “old money” was ample for a child. The Clubhouse was Hunts Barn, where members sat down to a huge meal, with as much cider as anyone could drink. Most farmers then made their own cider, so it was no treat, though always in demand.
There was a blacksmith’s forge at each end of Seavington St. Michael. Horses were needed to work on the farms, to draw the farmers’ traps, and to ride to hounds. “Hunts” (Mr. Wyatt’s) is so called because when the Seavington Hounds were kennelled at the bottom of what was then Buckrell’s Orchard, the hunt-kennelman lived at that cottage.
St. Michael’s also had a butcher (Warry, at Mr. Holditch’s), several dairies selling milk etc., and a baker (Gaylard, at “Swan Thatch”), who was also
a saddler. The baker would cook one’s Sunday dinner for twopence: you left the meat and potatoes there before morning service, and collected it when ready. The oven is still there.
Both St. Michael’s and St. Mary’s had a wheelwright-cum-carpenter, one at the lower end of Fouts [David’s] Lane, kept by Ash Bros.’ grandfather, the other attached to Jubilee Cottage, kept by William Vaux. He was also the Parson’s Clerk, and he made and sold Easter Cakes every year. That was the traditional prerogative of the Parson’s Clerk, although it is possible that Mr. Vaux did not realise it.